


The Frailty of Adjectives

by kali_asleep, QuinnAnderson



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, M/M, Parenthood, Parentlock, Tumblr: fuckyeahteenlock, contest prize, ted hughes, teenage angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 04:29:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kali_asleep/pseuds/kali_asleep, https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuinnAnderson/pseuds/QuinnAnderson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John can find no words to accurately describe the blessings of parenthood; Hamish can find no words to describe how big of a prat his father can be. </p><p>A parentlock prize piece written by the ladies of the fuckyeahteenlock tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Frailty of Adjectives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nat_scribbles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nat_scribbles/gifts).



> This work was a collaboration of love between myself and the ever flawless (and consistently punctual) QuinnAnderson, who began with a beautiful idea and graciously allowed me to grab it and run for the next few thousand words. It's a prize for nat_scribbles, aka sherlockintheshire, who won our very first contest over at fuckyeahteenlock.tumblr.com. It is thanks to her excellent ask box fic entry that this even exists today, and even more thanks to her eternal patience (I'm a shamefully slow writer), encouragement, and wonderful submissions that this came to full fruition. Thank you, lovely. 
> 
> Note: I've realized that the consensus for Hamish's last name seems to be Hamish Watson-Holmes. Oops. I guess I just went with what sounded better in my head at the time >_>
> 
> As always, this is a transformative and derivative work, neither QuinnAnderson nor myself claim any ownership over the characters created in BBC's Sherlock.
> 
> EDIT: The poem referenced for the case is Ted Hughes' "The Thought Fox" - check it out if you get the chance!

…

Of all the things Sherlock Holmes thought he’d be when he grew up, a father was not one of them.

As a child he’d entertained the possibility of a stunning variety of occupations: from pirate to astrophysicist. He’d spent hours imagining himself racing to the stars in a rocket ship or exploring a hot, humid jungle in South America. As he grew older, these fantasies turned more practical. Through most of secondary school, he’d been quite set on the idea of becoming a chemist, until he left for uni and one of the boys in his dorm was brutally murdered. This wasn’t like the Carl Powers case. He wasn’t little anymore, and this time the police took him seriously. It took a bit of finagling, but he finally convinced a young officer to let him look at the case file. He solved the crime in less than three hours (the boy’s French professor had murdered him when he’d threatened to tell her husband about their affair), and the officer happily took all the credit. Sherlock didn’t care in the slightest. He’d never felt a rush like this before, a frisson of pure adrenaline prickling down his spine. This, he decided, was what he was meant to do.

For nearly two decades, Sherlock thought he’d found the only thing he’d ever truly love. The work quieted the buzzing chaos of his mind in a way he’d never managed to do before without the use of illicit stimulants. It had seemed the perfect arrangement. He put forth the appearance of performing a service for society by getting dangerous criminals off the street, and he got to take the edge off the boredom that plagued his every waking moment. It seemed he’d found the perfect paramour with which to share his life.

But then he met John Watson.

John was an inexplicable anomaly. He was an idiot and every bit as dull as everyone else Sherlock knew, yet Sherlock simply couldn’t look away from him. The most mundane things became fascinating when John did them—making tea, watching telly, having film nights at 221B with Mrs Hudson—and for the first time, Sherlock could not only imagine spending his life with another human being, but he wanted to.

And then one day Sherlock did the most natural thing he could think of: he asked John to marry him.

They’d been a couple for three years at that point, and while neither of them had ever broached the subject, Sherlock had woken up one day and understood that he wanted nothing more than to bind his life to John’s. He’d arranged for them to have dinner at Angelo’s (fitting, he thought) after selecting a very simple gold band to present to his lover. He was so nervous he could barely look John in the eye. John had thought he was ill, what with the way he kept flushing and his voice had risen to an unnatural octave. It had taken Sherlock three hours and seventeen failed attempts to finally ask the question, and after the longest twelve seconds of utter silence in his life, John had smiled, taken his hands gently in his and said yes.

For a long time, that had been the happiest day of Sherlock’s life.

Then he met Hamish.

It was five years after that fateful day in Bart’s laboratory, and Sherlock’s hands were shaking as John gently passed him the most important thing he would ever hold. They were in St Andrew’s hospital, and a seventeen-year-old girl had just given birth to the child that would be theirs for the rest of their lives. It was a boy, as they’d already known it would be, with ten fingers and ten toes and the most incredibly beautiful face Sherlock had ever seen.

When he was honest with himself, he could admit he’d had no idea what to expect from parenthood. Adopting a child had been John’s idea, and while Sherlock was amenable, it was not something he’d ever spent much time thinking about. A part of him had been terrified at the idea. What if he couldn’t love a child? What if he was a terrible father? What if there really was something wrong with him, and John finally figured it out?

All of those fears and worries flew immediately out of his head as soon as the small, soft body of Hamish Holmes-Watson was placed ever-so-carefully into his arms. Hamish was sleeping, his eyelashes two dark crescent moons hanging over his plump cheeks. He had an unruly nest of blond-brown hair on his head and tiniest, most beautifully-formed nose and mouth he’d ever seen.

Sherlock’s heart pounded as he studied this new being. He felt something thrill inside of him that he couldn’t begin to define. It felt like his heart was expanding in his chest, threatening to burst from his ribcage. It was stupid, he knew, to feel so much over a person he’d never met, someone he’d never even spoken to, and yet Sherlock felt love for this tiny creature bubbling in every sinew and synapse in his body.

“Sherlock?” John asked quietly. He was studying him with an unreadable expression. Sherlock imagined he must have an odd look on his face. “All right?”

“He’s…” Sherlock stopped, trying to think of a word to properly describe this child—his son—and utterly failing. Perfect wasn’t perfect enough. Incredible might be correct in the old-fashioned sense of the word. Amazing. Astounding. Inconceivable. Beautiful. None of them were right.  The frailty of adjectives had never been more pronounced.

Sherlock sighed, giving up, and finally replied, “He’s ours.”

…

John had always wanted a family. Even when he was still a child himself, he’d imagined that someday he would have a son of his own, someone he could take camping and play football with on lazy Sunday afternoons. His relationship with Sherlock hadn’t changed this plan at all, and he’d been thrilled beyond description when he’d first mentioned adoption, and Sherlock had readily agreed to the idea.

John could never have predicted, however, that he would one day raise a child even half as interesting as Hamish.

Between the murder re-enactments starring a variety of stuffed animals and the posters of David Beckham on the wall, Hamish was certainly his fathers’ son. While not biologically related to either of them, he picked up a surprising number of their personality traits. He had Sherlock’s attention to detail and ability to throw a seven-day-long strop while also displaying John’s compassion and notoriously-short temper.

What fascinated John most about his son, however, was the change he inspired in his parents. John had never been a reckless person, but now when Sherlock and he went dashing through the streets in pursuit of some criminal or other, Hamish was always in the back of his mind. He seemed to be in Sherlock’s too, because when things got too dangerous or an unnecessary risk needed to be taken, Sherlock backed off. That was something that decidedly never would have happened before they became parents.

John worried at first that Sherlock would resent the change. They were no longer free to do as they wished, now that another human being depended entirely upon them. John had never voiced the thought aloud, but as much as he knew Sherlock loved their son, he couldn’t help but wonder if he didn’t wish he could go back to the way things were.

This thought niggled at John until one night shortly after Hamish’s eighth birthday he came home to find his husband and son asleep on their sofa. The telly was on, but there was a pile of open books next to them on the floor. From the looks of things, they’d been watching old crime dramas and researching all the ways the programmes were inaccurate, a favourite pastime of theirs. Hamish was asleep on Sherlock’s chest with his light hair ruffled out and his thumb in his mouth. Sherlock was resting his chin on the crown of Hamish’s head and had both arms wrapped protectively about him.

It was honestly one of the most beautiful things John had ever seen. They looked so peaceful, lying there together, theirs chest rising in unison as they breathed the slow breaths of those who are deeply asleep.

 John had to wonder how he’d ever had doubts about this. They were probably the world’s most unconventional family, but that was what made them so perfect. John had always wanted to have a son, but what he’d never realised before was how badly he wanted to have a son with Sherlock.

…

Anyone even distantly familiar with the Holmes-Watson household knew this one, incontrovertible fact: Hamish’s parents loved each other voraciously.

Nearly twenty years had failed to satiate the detective duo’s affection, which by now had become infamous (and in Hamish’s opinion, gag-worthy) amongst Hamish’s closest friends. Said fathers were currently hunched over the kitchen table, pouring over a new case as Hamish walked in. Their heads touched at the crowns, his Dad’s grey hair overwhelmed by the unruly silvering-black of his Father’s curls. His father was muttering under his breath as his finger traced along some unseen document on the table.

It was not until Hamish set his bag heavily on the floor next to the couch that his Dad’s head jerked up to look over. The motion knocked the thick reading glasses off of his nose and sent them onto the table with a clatter.

“Hullo, H,” he said, a grin twitching over his lips. At his dad’s voice, his father gave a grunt for a greeting.

Hamish meandered into the kitchen, giving the table a wide berth and stopping at the fridge. Even before he opened the door he knew the fridge was likely empty; confirming the obvious, Hamish turned back towards his parents. It was almost disgusting, he couldn’t help but think. In a rare moment of distraction, his father had looked up and noticed his dad’s missing glasses. He was now sliding the glasses back onto his dad’s face, now letting his slender fingers trail back down the sides of his dad’s jaw. Their faces drew slowly closer. Had Hamish’s eyes been able to roll any harder they might have popped out of their sockets. Perhaps it would have, for once, drawn his father’s attention.

“School was fine,” Hamish exclaimed, jarring his parents out of their lovesick reverie. His dad flushed ever-so-slightly and began to speak.

“Yes, I passed my chem exam.” Hamish’s brown eyes met his father’s pale gaze. “No, it was Tori Hooper who got the highest score.” His father pursed his lips; Hamish cut him off before the expected burn of his father’s criticism had a chance to flare. “I was second,” he said, chin jutting up in defiance.

While son and father stared each other down, his dad let loose a warm chuckle. “Enough with the mind-reading, Hamish. Could you be any more like your father?”

Hamish was nothing like his father. Whatever his dad may have said, Hamish knew it to be true.

Hamish liked poetry.  Hamish liked science fiction and Shakespeare. Hamish was studying history for his A-levels, and when he wasn’t spending his afternoons with his school’s drama club, he was playing football. He only tolerated the sciences because Tori, the daughter of his parents’ best friends, rewarded his efforts with sly kisses in the school library (one of the few things about Hamish which his father _hadn’t_ deduced).

“Mrs Hudson might kick us to the kerb if I were,” he said with a derisive snort. On the counter by the fridge a bowl of fruit with a masking tape label reading “FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION” drew Hamish’s attention from his parents. Snagging an apple, he missed the long look Sherlock gave him before he turned back to his work

…

There were days when the only word to describe his father was _atrocious_. Today was one of them. With his dad gone on a week-long conference set up by his publisher, Hamish’s father had firmly secured his photo in the spot in the dictionary next to “irate”. From upstairs Hamish heard the heavy _whump_ of books hitting the floor followed by a low curse.

“Hamish?” His father’s baritone rose up the stairs and marched past Hamish’s open bedroom door. Sighing, he got up.

The living room was an utter wreck. Papers carpeted the floor and were occasionally punctuated with the glossy colour photos of crime scenes. On the sofa rested a hill of lipstick tubes, the variety of shapes and sizes of their cases revealing that his father was looking for something specific. Finally, to the side of the coffee table, was the scattering of heavy tomes Hamish had heard hit the floor just moments earlier. His father, decked in his wrinkled dressing gown, spun on one bare heel when Hamish entered the room. Brandishing an open tube of lipstick like some bright, bloody dagger, he scowled.

Everyone in 221B hated John’s publicity meetings: John, because he was never certain if he would have an intact flat by the time he returned; Sherlock, because he would likely blow something up if left for too long without having John to parse through cases with; and Hamish because he always ended up having to fill in for his dad when his father was restless and the skull on the mantle went deaf. Hamish’s father was already yammering full-tilt by the time Hamish pushed aside the lipstick to flop onto the sofa. It was a serial murder case, ranked too mundane for Sherlock until the killer began leaving cryptic messages in lipstick along the limbs of victims. With flourish and flounce Hamish’s father circled the living room, picking up and tossing tubes of lipstick while speaking without pause. As Sherlock knotted his hands through his curls, Hamish settled his blond head on the armrest and waited. A perfunctory nod or occasional grunt was enough for his father, and as had often happened before, Hamish couldn’t help but wonder _why_ the skull wasn’t enough. It certainly wasn’t as though Sherlock was asking _Hamish_ for advice.

And that was what frustrated Hamish the most: his father found Hamish a tolerable substitute for his dad when talking about cases, but had never once taken Hamish on a case. In fact, he’d flat out refused. The explanations were always pedantic and always the same. The case was too delicate, even for the idiots down at NSY. The job required years of experience, craft, and knowledge that only he and his dad could have accumulated. The crime had to be solved quickly, and there wasn’t time for explanation, must be off now, cash for takeaway on the counter. Hamish rolled his eyes.

Half-listening to his father’s deductions, Hamish’s attention wandered to the crime scene photos strewn across the floor. The one nearest him showed nothing but a caramel-coloured forearm against a grey background—the recognizable concrete slab of a warehouse. A slash of vibrant red broke up the flat darkness of the picture. Hamish leaned over and picked the picture up, and as he pulled it closer the red became blood-orange bright letters along the inner flesh of the arm. The lipstick letters were surprisingly neat, allowing Hamish to read:

_Though deeper within darkness Is entering the loneliness_

The words stretched from the crook of the arm to the pointer finger, shrinking at the palm until the word “loneliness” was nearly illegible.

“There were four other victims found with similarly composed messages. I’d write it off as nonsense if they didn’t seem so stylistically similar. Clearly, the killings were vindictive, and the killer couldn’t help but leave some meaningful calling card. Rubbish, really.”

Hamish looked up sharply to see his father staring down. Pale blue met brown— one look probing, the other stunned. Could his father have really missed so obvious a clue? He stared in wonder as his father snatched the picture out of Hamish’s loose hold and abruptly did an about-face. Surfacing from his reverie, Hamish scrambled upstairs. His father did not turn as he left.

In the corner of a room painted blue sat a bookshelf gently buckling under the weight of hundreds of books. Hamish’s parents had made him a reader from a very early age, his father purchasing him brightly coloured anatomy texts with pop-up scapulae while his dad indulged in a young love of historical fantasy. Pages and pages of crime journals were broken by epics detailing the rise and fall of monarchies; a detailed guide to DNA analysis leaned heavily on a well-worn John Grisham novel. Amidst the books from his parents Hamish struck his own claim: annotated copies of Marlowe and Tennessee Williams, bright blips of distant worlds between covers with ‘Asimov’ in blocky font. And there, between _Kid’s Guide to Forensic Investigation_ and _Eyes and Lies: The Truth Behind Body Language_ waited a slim volume of poetry. Hamish reached from it, paged to a particular spot by memory. His father truly was blind.

“Father!” Hamish called, still half on the stairs. Sherlock looked over his shoulder from where he now sat in his armchair. Silently, he lifted one dark eyebrow. He had been threading his slender fingers through his own hair, leaving his mane in wild disarray. For a split second Hamish wished he could have more resembled his strikingly handsome parent (even _Tor_ had mentioned how attractive he was, not to mention her mother). Genetically neither Watson nor Holmes, Hamish only just took after his dad with blond hair and squaring jaw; the wiry muscle of his frame stretched him taller than his dad without giving him the elegance of his father.

“Get it out, Hamish.”

He had paused at the foot of the steps, but now Hamish approached his father. Teeth worried at bottom lip as Hamish clutched the book more tightly. Without a doubt he was right, but what would his father have to say? Would his eyes light up the same way they sparked when his dad worked something out, would he look on with pride at the fact that, for once, Hamish had helped to solve a case? Impatient blue eyes pierced Hamish from all the way across the room. Hesitantly, Hamish held out the book.

“And this is…?” Immediately his father seemed unimpressed; already, his attention was shifting back to the picture in his hand.

“It’s a book-“

“Clearly.”

“A book of poetry,” Hamish continued, unfazed, “I chose to read it for an analysis essay last term. Ted Hughes, really good st-“

As he spoke his father’s brow began to furrow and his mouth turned to a grimace.

“Excellent, Hamish,” he spat, “I’ll be sure to consult you the next time I need instruction on metaphors.”

The edge behind his father’s words nearly made Hamish falter. Still, he’d seen his dad and father argue before, had watched his dad barrel through the worst of his father’s tempers.

“There’s this poem he wrote, his best, everybody’s read it—I thought you might want to look at it.”

The wrinkles lining his father’s eyes and brow deepened, his handsome face twisted into an ugly glare.

“Hamish Gregory Holmes-Watson, four people have been killed and there is a murderer still at large. If there _ever_ were a time for poetry, it would most undeniably not be now.”

“But father-“

“Hamish, my concentration at this moment requires-“

“Look, father- _Sherlock_ , just listen to me for _once,_ the poem-”

“Oh don’t be so dull!” his father snarled.

The sharp click of the word reverberated in the sudden stillness of the room.

The angry flush that had risen on his father’s cheeks drained, leaving Sherlock’s pale eyes paler in the white set of his face.  His lips parted. No sound came out.

It started slowly. For the first few moments, Hamish was paralysed, the abrupt red blankness that bloomed behind his eyes leaving his body unable to respond. As the red pushed down spine and throat, however, he began to tremble. His fingers clutched at the book in his hands, unconsciously warping the pages underneath them. His arm pulled back.

He missed by intentional inches. No longer in his grip, the book flew across the sitting room and hit just below the mantle with a loud crack.

Sherlock did not move until Hamish slammed the door on his way out.

…

Being the reluctant son of a soldier and a genius detective had its advantages. For instance, Hamish knew the busiest public intersections in London, all of the spaces where a fifteen-year-old could move through without sticking out. He knew how to make himself practically invisible; one slight shift in posture and a few shortcuts kept him well out of sight from the narrow-eyed shopkeeper or the innocuous homeless woman tucked against the wall of an alley. Since adolescence he had been instructed on the style and range of the most advanced security camera systems, and had been drilled in tactical methods of avoiding digital detection. His London was a sonnet: lined on precisely measured feet and hopelessly predictable end-rhyme.

And boy, could Hamish write a poem. As his Uncle propped his umbrella against the café table and gracefully sat across from him, Hamish had to admire his own acumen. It had taken Mycroft nearly three hours to track him down, even with the help of Tori. Tori, who now fidgeted at Hamish’s left, alternated between grimacing at Mycroft and squeezing Hamish’s hand apologetically.

“Your father is absolutely decimated.”

His Uncle’s drawl was frustratingly neutral, though for a moment Hamish thought he might have seen a hint of a grin tug at the corners of his thin lips.

“My father is absolutely a prat,” Hamish growled, giving in to the urge to roll his eyes.

“And you’re not going to make H apologise for anything, either!” Tori glared at Mycroft and tossed her head fiercely. The messy spikes of her brown hair made her snarl seem all the more lion-like.

Mycroft tipped his head forward, unfazed by the teens. “I couldn’t agree more, Ms Hooper . Whatever my brother did, I don’t doubt that Hamish’s reaction was justifiable. Speaking of which…”

The question was obvious, yet Hamish struggled to respond. It was easy to repeat in his head—the word practically vibrated through him. But to speak it was to make it real, make it true that it had happened.

Unbidden, a waitress approached and silently set a cup of tea in front of Mycroft and an iced coffee before Tori. The clinking of Tori’s spoon against glass as she furiously stirred in extra sugar gave Hamish a moment to think. Mycroft sipped his tea and then set it down, resolute.

“While I hate repeating myself, decimated is the only word to describe your father. He’s an utter mess—I doubt he’s even realised that I left. He’s been alternating between calling John and every member of his homeless network for the past two hours. I’m fairly certain that before that, he left Baker Street to walk the entire way to your school in his dressing gown. Totally insensible—if he had his wits about him, he might have called your mother,” his Uncle paused to tip his head to Tori, “instead of your father down at Scotland Yard.”

As if on cue, two ringtones simultaneously came to life at the table. Tori was the first to pull out her phone and scowl. “My dad,” she said, muting the call. Mycroft pulled his own phone from his jacket. “Sherlock” was clear on the caller ID. He set his phone on the table at let it ring.

“He called me _dull_.”

Their silence fed his words.

“I solved the case for him—it was so stupid—I worked it all out and instead of listening, he called me dull, as if I could have never had anything to contribute, as if I was just some nattering distraction.”

Mycroft slid a single finger to his phone and hung up on Sherlock.

“I believe I may be in an incredibly important national security meeting for the next two hours,” he said, tone bland. His phone began to ring again. He silenced it. “Very top secret, obviously no outside communication permitted. Perhaps by the time I am done, my brother will have come to his senses.”

In near perfect unison both Hamish and Tori snorted. An almost imperceptible crinkling at the corners of Mycroft’s eyes revealed to Hamish more about his amusement than did his words. Tori’s phone began to squawk once again.

“Mum,” she muttered, powering down the device.

The shallow ripples of changing expression on his uncle’s face might make an interesting study, Hamish thought. Minutely the humour shifted from Mycroft’s face and was replaced by what few (if any) outside of the Holmes family might recognise as something softer, sadder.

“H.”

Hamish’s gaze slid from face to eyes. While his father and uncle weighed more heavily on their differences than similarities, there was no denying the glacial intensity shared between the light fissures of their narrowed stares. Yet while Hamish could always (he realised in that moment, _always_ ) read the thoughts behind his father’s eyes, his uncle’s were inscrutable. Given the practiced blankness of his uncle’s look, Hamish was blindsided his next words.

“Your father has always been clueless in matters of the heart. You’ll have to understand, then, why he’s so abominably hopeless when it comes to you.”

The scraping whine of chair against linoleum. Mycroft stood, took hold of his umbrella, and tapped it against the ground twice. “Hamish. Ms Hooper.”

And with that, he left.

…

“Think your uncle was playing it up? Trying to help your father out?”

“I, ah. I don’t think it works like that.”

…

Like most childhood memories, the recollection of his dad’s kidnapping was indistinct: a still-frame picture show replayed through rain-fogged glass. He’d been barely nine then and still far from his growth spurt, still small enough for Mrs Hudson to pull onto her lap and into her chest when his father came thundering out of his parents’ room. Even pressed up against Mrs Hudson’s lavender jumper, Hamish had recognised the orderly clink of ammunition being loaded into the handgun he wasn’t supposed to know about.

Eventually Mrs Hudson released him from her jarringly strong hold, and Hamish turned to face his father. An hour passed in which all he did was stare, honey-brown eyes wide, at his father. There were phone calls (which alternated between muttered and screamed) and emails, scribbled notes and frantic texts and the near constant thump of indistinct feet up and down the stairway (his father met is visitors at the door, voice low and garbled). Amidst the chaos Hamish had impressions of moments, moments when his father’s voice suddenly became louder and his words distinct, moments when Hamish understood with fragile alacrity that his dad was _gone, taken, missing. In danger_. Still these moments blurred together, overlapped to construct some hazy memory that was more than likely not entirely true. Yet there was one thing Hamish remembered distinctly, and remembered in a way that drew no doubt of its reality.

He remembered his father’s face.

It compares nothing to the face before him now.

At fifteen, Hamish doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone look so broken. For a split second when his father walks in and Hamish sees his face, Hamish feels a surge of victory—his father, cowed, no longer so arrogant, so harsh. But then everything crumbles because the look on his father’s eyes goes beyond his ability to deduce or even comprehend; in the scope of those eyes, the frailty of adjectives left _anguish_ simpering and _sorrow_ shallow. _Regret_ , too imprecise. _Joy,_ too anaemic.

His father’s jaw is tight, teeth clenched behind lips that flicker between smile and frown. Hamish has only been gone for five hours, yet in that time it seems his father has wrinkled, lines cutting in below his cheeks and sagging under his eyes. He does not sit, simply stands next to the table as is wavering behind some uncertain barrier.

“Something more near, though deeper within darkness, is entering the loneliness.”

The words are a low scratch, the voice a mash of cigarettes and sobs. His father’s gaze pierces him, leaves Hamish frozen.

“You were correct,” his father continues. “About the case.”

Hamish expects it’s the closest to an apology he’ll get from his parent. Sherlock takes a deep breath.

“Hamish. My words were thoughtless and cruel, and never meant for you. In my frustration I lashed out irrationally and put you at risk. Sorry is not enough.”

Hamish shook his head in disbelief. A day of firsts. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was still hurt, even angry—but at the same time, the look on his father’s face, his words and the unexpected apology, all eased the boy back into calm. Perhaps he too had done some wrong, had breathed in the smoke of Sherlock’s fire and then shouted when it stung.

“ S’all right,” Hamish murmured, knowing his father would understand the depth of such a simple response. He stood up and took Tori’s hand.

His father cast him another long look. The word was inadequate, but in one rush Hamish began to understand, albeit minutely, the force behind his father’s gaze: something very much like _love_.

…

Hamish was not curled up against Sherlock’s chest or nestled in his arms, but the boy had deigned to spend the evening on the same sofa, quietly watching bad telly. Still, in John’s eyes the gesture was nearly child-like and equally warm—something John had not been expecting when Sherlock had stutteringly called him home from his meeting. Sherlock had called him no less than twenty-seven times in the nearly five hours that Hamish had been away from Baker Street, and despite John’s reassurances that Hamish was most likely just having a teenage strop Sherlock’s calls and texts became increasingly more frantic. It was not until Sherlock broke and told him _exactly_ what he had said to Hamish (an accident, yes, but an accident that hurt to even consider) that John deemed it necessary to come home. ( _I’ve lost him_ , Sherlock had gasped. _The one I love the most in this world, and I’ve ruined it, lost him._ )

Between Hamish’s disappearance and John’s nearly nasty berating, Sherlock had grown worn. He could tell it the minute he stepped in and pulled off his coat—he and his husband were a unit, had been for years, and John would be damned if he couldn’t tell Sherlock’s very thoughts by the slope of his shoulders (later, much later, John would like to press his hands over Sherlock’s face and neck, smooth out the long furrows of the day). And then there was his son— _their_ son—who sprawled out over half of the sofa and armrest, gazing blearily at the television yet refusing to go to sleep. He and Sherlock did not look at one another, did little more occasionally mutter a few vaguely case-related sounding thoughts. Still, something thrummed between them, an almost resolved acceptance, perhaps even an accord.

As John shuffled to the kitchen and began to heat the kettle, he couldn’t help but think of nights not-so-long-ago and not-so-different-from-this. Hamish, bundled up in Sherlock’s lap and blinking drowsily as Sherlock’s low rumble detailed the events of their last case (blood and danger censored as best as possible). Hamish, with his quietly explosive temper and his subtle sensitivity. He knew his son balked at being compared to his father (John would be lying if he said he didn’t occasionally egg H on about it), but the similarities were obvious to someone who had seen them both in contrast for years. He loved it, loved his boys, loved his _son._ And Sherlock—from the day Hamish had been placed in his hands, the idea, the love, had grown until it was irrefutable. Many might have mistaken Sherlock’s distance for heartlessness, but John knew better.

“Hamish, you ought to go to bed.” Sherlock’s voice tiptoes across the flat.

“Mmm,” their son responds, practically asleep.

“I would like for you to come to the crime scene for the case tomorrow. It’s high time I stopped being afraid of something you’re naturally good at.”

Hamish pulled his heavy head off of the armrest to look at his father in sleepy disbelief.

“Besides, it’s hardly as if the crime scene is still _active_ …”

John could almost see the eye roll, despite his back being to them.

“Faa-ther,” Hamish whined, half in jest.

“Get to bed. Save any complaining for the morning.”

With a few light-hearted grumbles, Hamish rolled off of the sofa and got to his feet. He was almost to the stairs when he remembered his routine.

“G’night Dad. Night, Father.”

From the sofa Sherlock stirred, turned to Hamish. “I love you, Hamish.”

“You too,” the boy said, voice somewhat clearer than before.

With a small smile, John watched their son trudge up the stairs. Once he disappeared, John turned to his husband, who seemed to have collapsed into the couch, suddenly boneless.

John moved to the sofa and picked up Sherlock’s unresisting legs. He settled into the couch and let Sherlock stretch back out over him.

“He’s perfect, you know?” Sherlock mumbled. His eyes had sunk shut.

“Mm, yeah. As perfect as any teenager’s going to be, especially with us dolts for parents.”

“You know what I mean. Brilliant. Stubborn. Brave. Ours.”

Long fingers wended their way through John’s, squeezed tightly. John smiled and lightly pulled the hand to his lips.

“Ours, maybe, for now. But definitely becoming his own.”

…

The end.

…

 


End file.
